Recess (LA)

[Jamie Morrigan]

The playground behind San Miguel Elementary School was full of running, shouting, squealing, squabbling fourth graders who collectively presented an excellent study in Brownian motion. Some of them took turns at the swings, competing to see who could jump the highest, others were trying to make themselves sick on the merry-go-round while a small gang of boys were testing out creative and subversive new uses for the monkey bars. Still others had picked up an impromptu game of soccer using cones as goals, and others were engaged in fantasies of NBA stardom on the asphalt half-court against the back of the school building.

Jamie had tried helping them out once with a sheen of hardwood, arena lighting, roaring crowd, and full-sized opponents. But they'd run screaming from the court, and one of them had smacked headlong into the tetherball pole just beyond the edges of the illusion. That had led to another visit to the principal's office and another letter to take home to Anna.

She didn't see what the big deal was - it had been their own fault for running. Anyway, Adam was showing his stitches off to everybody when he got back - battle scars from an encounter with a real, live mutant. But the upshot was she'd been told not to include others in her fantasies without their express permission. Unfortunately, the only two kids who seemed to like her abilities were Laine and Arnaz, and Arnaz was playing soccer and Laine was sick today. So she found herself patrolling the tall chain-link fence at the perimeter of the playground like she did just about every other recess, enjoying the company of her own thoughts.

Aussie the fierce snake slithered beside her in the scrubby brown grass. She hadn't shown him to anyone at school yet, because they'd just scream and run into something else, and then Jamie would have to go see Mr. Barton again and maybe Mrs. Baumgarten, the school counselor who tried to get Jamie into her office at every opportunity. Jamie didn't like her much at all. She reminded her a lot of Ms. Harmon.

A noise from the chain link fence stratled her, and she whirled around to look at it. There had been a gust of wind, but what she heard hadn't sounded like the fence rattling in the wind. It sounded like someone was climbing over the fence. But she couldn't see anyone there.

[Spectre]

Dropping to the ground, she just watched the little girl at first. The sound of the fence shaking had caught her attention, and Jamie was astute enough to know she was no longer alone. The choice to announce her presence or not was made.

Hello, Jamie.. Don't be afraid. It's just me.

I've missed you. And she had.

How many people could the little girl possibly know that would communicate with her silently?

I didn't think it was a good idea to let anyone else see me, but... Tell you what. Let's play a game. Make me look your age and they'll just think I'm another student.

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie gasped when she felt the words drifting across her mind. Despite what Mrs. Baumgarten seemed to think, Jamie didn't have any trouble distinguishing between her own fantasies and reality, and she knew she wasn't imagining this. All her imaginary friends were visible.

In fact, there was only one person she'd ever met who could talk to her like that. And it was one of her favorite people in the whole world. Jamie's face lit up like the sun.

"Spectre!" she squealed, though she tried to keep her voice down - she was far enough away from everyone else that they couldn't hear her. She'd have thrown her arms around the other mutant, but she couldn't see her.

And then she remembered that Spectre could hear her thoughts too, so, beaming at the empty air, she thought, Okay, I'm gonna try - just hold still.

She closed her eyes and drew on her memories of the woman from the rescue at Jericho - it had been so long ago, but she was certain she'd never forget Spectre's face. She started there, softened the features a little, gave her a body - Jamie thought she'd be a little tall for her age - gave her the same platinum blond tresses she remembered...

When she opened her eyes again, she saw a smiling, pretty, ten-year-old girl in a white tank top and capris. Jamie could barely contain herself - it was like having Spectre as a classmate!

[Spectre]

Glancing down at herself, she had to admit it. Jamie was good.

"Not bad at all, kiddo. By the way, it's...", she looked around spy like. "...Sylvia."

Smiling, she glanced down at the wriggling imaginary snake. "So how come you're over here playing all by yourself?"

She could take a few guesses, probably something like... the other kids were afraid of her, or she was weird, or some other tale common among kids as gifted as Jamie. Still, she'd rather hear it from Jamie's perspective.

[Jamie Morrigan]

Sylvia... so she was undercover again! Jamie smiled back, and she wondered if Spectre was crouching low enough so her eyes were where Jamie was imagining them to be. Or maybe from Spec-- Sylvia's perspective, everything looked bigger as if she really was ten years old? Jamie wasn't sure; she'd never done this before.

She shrugged, not terribly concerned about the question. "The other kids I usually play with aren't here today," she said. "And any time I try to do anything really fun, the recess teacher starts freaking out."

She pointed over to the middle-aged woman monitoring the children from over by the door.

"But this one time when everybody was playing football, a couple kids and I had the playground all to ourselves, and I made it into this Mayan jungle temple thing, where the swings were vines and the monkey bars were over a snake pit, and we had to get this idol from the top of the slide, but Evan was too slow, and after the headhunters got him, he started crying and ran to the teacher. Then Mrs. Baumgarten asked me a bunch of questions for a whole class period about whether I had fantasies about beheading people."

[Spectre]

On eye level with her younger pal, she couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry I missed that! That must have been awesome. I'm surprised you aren't the most popular girl at school. Definitely the most fun and creative."

She shot a look over at the recess teacher in question. She was sorely tempted to implant the woman with the suggestion that she was nine years old and had a sudden urge to go down the slide on her stomach. Let's see how long she keeps her job after that! Deciding not to interfere, yet.. she refrained.

"Well, that doesn't sound so bad. So things are alright then? You like the place you are staying at now?"

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie nodded enthusiastically. "They're all mutants there!" she gushed. "Anna can turn into solid ice, and Jake's a telepath like you, but he can't turn himself invisible. And Aidan can shoot blue fire from his hands, and there's this new girl who becomes unstoppable when she runs. At first I was disappointed that there weren't any kids my age, but, you know..."

She nodded toward the playground. "Most of the girls just care about clothes and make-up, and most of the boys just care about sports and video games. Some of them are okay, but most of them are just kinda boring."

She shrugged. What were you going to do?

[Spectre]

Anna, ice. Aidan, fire. Jake, telepath. Thank you, Jamie., she thought silently to herself. So far, only Jake sounded like he might pose an interesting amount of resistance.

"They are not nearly as special as you are, sweetie. Don't even think on it.", She managed to bite her tongue, keeping any commentary about how the other kids would do better playing with worms and other low intelligence lifeforms, not genetically superior beings such as Jamie.

The house Jamie found herself living in now was a compromise of sorts between herself and Dragon. This way she was not forced into the Brotherhoods dangerous lifestyle, or made to be fed the nonsensical drivel spouted at Cullen's about cohabiting with the inferior herd. She was still with her own kind, but living as normal life as was possible.

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie nodded, and then found herself running up into something Anna had told her, that other people weren't worth less just because they didn't have mutant powers. But Sylvia hadn't said they were worth less or she should treat them badly, just that they weren't as special. She could accept that.

"The kids here don't really ever bother me if I don't want them to," she said. "But a couple days ago, Anna and I were taking groceries back home, and these men from a gang came up and cursed at us and hit Anna in the face."

Jamie turned her eyes down toward the ground, and she spotted Aussie, who'd wound himself through the chain link fence. He stretched toward her, and she stroked him on his imaginary forehead.

"I scared 'em away with a bunch of snakes, and then Jake came and helped fight them off. But I couldn't really make the snakes bite them. I wanted to."

She waved her hand, and it passed cleanly through Aussie's neck, making him shimmer.

[Spectre]

That Jamie had been in danger from a gang made Sylvia's imaginary, childish face frown in girlish displeasure, but the truth was... Spectre was pissed.

"A gang, huh? You did good, using your abilities to protect yourself. I'm very proud of you.." Instinct had kicked in, not unlike the night they had first met. (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17842) She was resourceful, clever and extremely talented for one so young, but she was also mortal and bullets could kill her as fast as an ordinary human.

"Jamie, did you happen to catch anything about the gang that would tell me who exactly they were? I get the feeling that there is more than one around." To say the least.. That was the only bad point about placing Jamie here. It was very close to some very rough areas.

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie's eyebrows went down in thought. "I don't know," she said. "I don't think they ever said. But their leader, the one who punched Anna, looked like..."

She looked up and to her left, and a lumbering silhouette appeared beside her. It resolved into a rough-looking man, mid-to-late twenties, with buzzed hair, a multiply broken nose, and prolific tattoos. He scowled at the two girls and said, with a faintly distorted voice, "You should take the mutantes bastardos and leave..."

Then Jamie made him disappear. She didn't want to look at him any longer than she had to. But then she saw something else that worried her. "Uh-oh..."

Miss Suarez, the recess monitor, was marching across the yard toward them with a look of concern. "Jamie," she said, "What's going--" Then she saw an unfamiliar girl with fair hair. "Who are you? You didn't come out with the rest of the class."

[Spectre]

After taking a good long look at the guy and committing his, soon to be rearranged, face to memory, her attention was claimed by the arrival of Miss Suarez, the dreaded.

She really did not pose that much of a problem, but still.. This was Jamie's school. She could not cause too much of an upset, or it would be Jamie who paid the price.

"What do you mean, Miss Suarez? I've been here all morning, ma'am.", the precocious little girl with the silver-blond hair smiled indulgently at the recess teacher.

"Oh! Look at the clock! We still have a long time to play! Jamie, you want to spin on the merry-go-round with me?"

[Jamie Morrigan]

Miss Suarez blinked at the new girl and looked confused. "Oh... of course, I'm sorry, dear," she said. "Yes, you've got plenty of time."

She turned around and walked slowly back toward the school building, wondering why on earth she had been so concerned a moment ago.

Jamie grinned at Spectre as if sharing a private joke. "That was great! You should come to recess every day."

She looked back toward the playground, where most of the kids were clustered. The merry-go-round was more or less central, right between the jungle gym and the monkey bars, and there were still a half-dozen kids propelling it to reckless speeds and a handful more imploring to let them take a turn.

"Do you really want to go on the merry-go-round, or were you just pretending? 'Cause we're gonna have to wait a while."

[Spectre]

At the thought of spending everyday at recess with Jamie, she felt almost warm and fuzzy, for such a jaded soul as she. The kid had definitely gotten under her skin.

Turning her attention to the problem of the much occupied merry-go-round, she became suddenly inspired. "Well, a clever girl could think of a way to make those kids take turns."

She folded her arms across her chest, as if to say Jamie was on her own.

"If you can do it, I'm game."

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie looked over to the playground and back at Sylvia, open-mouthed. "Well, I..." Ohhh, she knew what Anna was going to say if she got called into the principal's office again...

But, to her surprise, there was a look of conspiratorial challenge on the face of Spectre's fourth-grade avatar that a real ten-year-old couldn't have pulled off any better. And this was Spectre! Jamie couldn't very well disappoint her, could she?

Jamie turned to the merry-go-round again and thought about how she could clear the kids away. She could cover it in deadly snakes - but that would be as good as admitting she'd done it. She needed to think of something that was actually believable.

And then she had it. She smiled at Sylvia.

Out of the hole in the middle of the spinning merry-go-round buzzed a single yellow jacket. The insect wound drunkenly through the air for a few moments before lighting on one of the handrails the riders were clinging to. It started to crawl ominously toward one boy's hand.

"Augh! Bee!"

The boy slipped backwards and tumbled off the spinning platform, rolling spectacularly into the wood chips covering the playground. The other boys laughed at him and started calling him a wuss.

Until three more yellow jackets emerged from the hole. The boys ignored them until the wasps started dive-bombing them. Two more riders abandoned the merry-go-round while the remaining three ducked their heads and tried to swat the yellow jackets away.

Oh, this was working better than Jamie had expected! Now she conjured up a veritable cloud of the wasps, at least two dozen, and they spiraled threateningly over the merry-go-round. The kids scattered screaming, not just the ones who'd been hogging it, but the ones who'd been waiting their turn, too.

Now that the ride was clear, Jamie made the bugs fly up into the sky and out of sight. She looked at Sylvia with an embarrassed grin. "Well... I guess it's all ours, now. But we'd better wait a while, or they're gonna figure out it was me."

[Spectre]

Delight written on her little girl features, she gave a small round of applause to the miniature mutant. "Bravo, Jamie.. That, was perfect."

Not only incredibly gifted, but also aware of her gifts and how to restrain and control them to get the best possible outcome. She was a wee master of manipulation already, and the best part was that her puppets weren't even aware they were being managed.

Lurking nearby the 'infested' merry-go-round, they waited a decent interval before claiming their prize. "I'm glad you are doing well, Jamie. I was worried that you would be unhappy. I'll be in the area for a while doing some work. So I'll make sure to come and visit you if I can."

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie lit up even more - if that were possible. "Could you? I'd love to introduce you to Anna and Jake and everybody else..."

Something Spectre had said sank through Jamie's excitement, and she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. "Work? What kind of work? Is there someone else you're trying to rescue?"

Bubbling just below the surface was the question Jamie had only just stopped herself from asking, but it was so at the front of her mind that Spectre couldn't possibly have missed it: Can I help?

[Spectre]

She winced, being introduced as Spectre the infamous mutant-terrorist-assassin, playmate of Jamie, was not exactly what she had in mind. "Maybe no introductions right away, hmm? I'd like it if you were the only one who knew I was in town. Our little secret, yes?"

"I'm not on a rescue mission, no. This time I am just trying to make sure that people like us don't all wind up with collars around our necks." Jamie of all people could understand that. At her mention of a desire to help, Spectre's cold little heart warmed by a measure.

"Sure you can. If I find something that you can do to help me, I promise to come get you straightaway, the best thing that you can do for me right now is to be good for Anna, and be good at school. I could always be where you don;t see me, you know!", she smiled.

"I wouldn't want to see you being a bad girl, not unless it involved getting rid of some smelly boys from the swings.."

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie smiled conspiratorially. She knew just how she'd do it, too - make a big, fat Sydney funnelweb spider slink down from the crossbar on a strand of spiderweb as the boy was swinging backwards so it was at face-level right when he was coming down--

A scream from the swings startled her, and she whirled around to see a boy reaching the apex of his swing with a hand-sized spider riding his face. He released the chains and tumbled to the wood chips in a heap.

Jamie looked at Spectre, mortified. "I didn't mean to do that - I was just thinkin' about it!"

When the boy rolled over, the spider was gone. But his face was red and tear-streaked, and he clutched at a rapidly swelling ankle. Jamie watched helplessly as several other kids gathered around the injured boy, and he looked back furiously and pointed an accusing finger straight at her.

Jamie nearly wilted. "Oh, no..."

[Spectre]

The fact that Jamie had created something so vivid, without actually even trying was no lost on her. She'd only been entertaining thoughts about a possible scenario to use at a later time, and the rest had been history, her abilities jumping off the page of the storybook in her mind, so to speak. Apparently she was about to pay the piper too, by the distressed look on her little face.

Easy there kiddo.. Let me see if I can help you out.

Joining the growing circle of kids wanting to have a peek at their crying classmate, it was no matter for Spectre to flit through their minds and rewrite things a tad, here and there. Of course, there was still the spider, but a more reasonably sized cousin. The boy had merely over-reacted. All accounts agreed, Jamie had been playing quietly with another student by the bee infested merry-go-round at the time of the mishap.

As they assisted the limping boy back toward the school, Spectre shimmered out of sight, but returned to Jamie.

I think they are going to be on to our little extended recess soon.

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie nodded blankly. Her heart was still pounding from the narrowly averted mishap.

She looked around for the Sylvia-girl she'd created and was surprised to see she'd faded away - maybe the commotion had broken her concentration. Or maybe Spectre made the visible image that wasn't really there invisible?

"They're gonna be all right, right?" she asked quietly, trusting Spectre was still in earshot. "I actually kinda like Miss Suarez."

[Spectre]

They will be fine. They will just remember the boy who fell overreacting, and a much smaller spider.

Brushing her invisible fingers through Jamie's hair, Spectre felt incredibly like an irate PTO Mom, ready to loose her venom at a parent-teacher conference and start driving a mini-van.

I know you didn't mean to do it, and I do not want to see you being treated like you tried to hurt him on purpose. Public schools, especially public schools for humans, have no idea what it is like to learn and control mutant abilities. They should not be able to punish you just for being you... Understand?

[Jamie Morrigan]

Yes, Jamie thought back, nodding. It was weird feeling invisible fingers in her hair - it made her shiver, but in a good way.

She was glad Spectre understood - but of course she would! Jamie could imagine what it must've been like when Spectre first learned she could control people's minds...

But Jamie made sure to keep those thoughts to herself so the older mutant didn't have to do any more damage control.

Miss Suarez had come to check on the injured boy, shook her head, then took a look at her watch and stared at it in amazement. How in the world had time gone by that fast?

Jamie was watching and thought, sadly, I have to go now. Maybe you can visit sometime soon?